


Canis Major (and the brightest star in the sky)

by EmeraldTulip



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gay Will Byers, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s03e08 The Battle of Starcourt, Step-Siblings Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Will Byers and Eleven | Jane Hopper Are Best Friends, and also post moving, basically. them learning about each other and growing closer and being better for it, it's all willel bonding, the ships are background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 13:56:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20047171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldTulip/pseuds/EmeraldTulip
Summary: “Sometimes I forget,” Will begins, letting go of her wrist so that he can bury his head in his hands, “that you’re the only person who understands.” He huffs out a bitter laugh. “You know—what’s happening all up in my head. And… I wish we were friends. I really do.”or:The first few months of being Will and El of the Byers family.





	Canis Major (and the brightest star in the sky)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alwaysnew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysnew/gifts).

> can you tell im absolutely in love with these siblings?  
this is dedicated to my friend [sarah](https://lwjdyke.tumblr.com), the will to my el.  
enjoy!

El wakes to the sound of a muffled thump, coming from the next room over, followed by a hiss. It sounds kind of like, “bitch!”

To be fair, that’s El’s favorite Forbidden Word. It’s also making an appearance as a mysterious noise in the night. So of course she gets up to investigate. Her feet curl into the carpet as she creeps over to the door of what used to be Jonathan’s bedroom, easing it open. Sure enough, out in the hall, Will is pacing. His balance seems off—he’s leaning too heavily on his right foot, in a manner that El is well used to at this point with regards to herself.

“What are you doing?” she whispers, careful to keep her voice low so that she doesn’t wake Jonathan—he’s been sleeping on a spare mattress in the living room.

Will jumps and spins around to face her. “Jesus, El!” he gasps, voice also breathy and quiet. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” They stare at each other for just a moment too long, and El can feel how uncomfortable Will is. She clears her throat. “Are you… okay? I heard a noise.”

Will waves it off. “Yeah. I stubbed my toe. It’s fine.”

Which is a perfectly acceptable answer, except—

El frowns. “Why were you awake?”

She can see the exact moment that the shutters are drawn down behind Will’s eyes, shutting her out. “I just couldn’t sleep,” he says tersely.

And El _knows_ that’s not true. “Friends don’t lie,” she points out, and she’s not expecting the almost _violent_ reaction that illicits from him.

“Who said anything about friends?” he snaps, his spine suddenly straightening, and she supposes that he must register the look of hurt on her face because his expression immediately softens. “I’m sorry,” he says.

She shakes her head, willing to let it go so they can just go back to sleep. But Will reaches out, his fingertips splayed, and when she looks into his eyes she can see the remorse in them.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “Really, I am. I just…” He sighs. “Can we talk?”

He outstretches his hand again, imploringly, and El finally reaches out to link their fingers—she wants to hear what he has to say. He pulls her into his room and sinks down onto the edge of his bed. After a moment of hesitation, she joins him, their knees pressing together.

“Sometimes I forget,” Will begins, letting go of her wrist so that he can bury his head in his hands, “that you’re the only person who understands.” He huffs out a bitter laugh. “You know—what’s happening all up in my head. And… I wish we were friends. I really do.”

“Aren’t we?” she frowns.

Will sighs, flopping onto his back. “I don’t _know_,” he says. “I don’t even know you. And now you’re my _sister_. I’ve never had one of those before.”

El chooses to save the _sister_ conversation for another time, because she’s never had a brother either, and it’s a whole mess of emotions she’s not about to get into at two in the morning. “Why don’t you know me?” she asks instead.

Will sighs again, frustrated. “I _don’t know_. I care about you, I do. But I barely know you. Especially not you _without_ Mike.”

This is Max all over again, El reflects. No one knows anything about her—to them, she’s _Mike’s ex-girlfriend_, _Hop’s daughter _(not anymore and _no El don’t think about that one_), _the escaped experiment_. She honestly doesn’t know which is the worst to be identified as. At least escaping the government is kind of cool.

So she sticks out a hand, like Benny taught her all those years ago. “Hi,” she says. “I’m El.”

Will stares at her blankly for a moment before the corner of his lip twitches up. He grasps her hand. “I’m Will.”

* * *

Will clambers gratefully out of Jonathan’s car once he pulls into the gas station.

“Get me a Cherry Lime Rickey,” his brother calls from the driver’s seat as he struggles to unclasp his seatbelt, and Will acknowledges him with a wave.

He scans the parking lot for El, spotting his mother’s car and the trailer across the lot, until he finds her standing in the shade under the 7-Eleven sign. He chuckles to himself for a moment before jogging over.

She grins as he approaches, dangling a ten dollar bill from her fingers. “Ma said this should be enough.”

“And she’s right,” Will says, yanking the door open and sighing in relief as cool air washes over him, “unless you buy Eggos.”

El sighs, looking resigned. “I’ll just wait until we get to the house. It’s not that far anymore.”

She’s right. They’ve been driving for a day and a half, and according to Jonathan, they’re supposed to be only another two hours away. “Thank god for that,” he mutters.

They make their way over to the drink coolers, and Will digs through the messily organized rows to find Jonathan’s drink. “How’s driving with Mom?” he asks as he successfully pulls out the bottle.

She shrugs, grabbing a Coke off a shelf at eye-level without really looking at it. “It’s fine. We listened to music.”

He links arms with her and leads her over to the Slurpee machine, pouring himself a small cherry cup. “That sounds nice.”

She shrugs again. “Yeah. She’s quiet, though. She didn’t even sing along with me during _Everybody Wants To Rule The World_, and she knows that’s your birthday song!”

Will grabs a bag of chips on the way to the cash register, and El hands the cashier the money once he rings them up. “Well, we’re gonna be there soon,” he assures her, seeing the way her nose wrinkles when she tastes her drink. Without saying anything, he takes a long sip of his Slurpee before handing it to El, taking a swig of her Coke. “And then we can sing with the radio while we unpack.”

El smiles gratefully at him, taking the Slurpee. “Yeah,” she says. “That’ll be fun.”

* * *

El laughs as Will plays intense air guitar, kicking a half-empty box of her clothes aside so he can do a complicated spin as he sings along to _Bohemian Rhapsody_.

“_Mamaaaaaaaa, oooooooooooooooooooooh_,” Will practically yells, and El collapses into a fit of giggles because she _knows_ that he can actually sing decently well—he’s just putting on a show to entertain her, as well as distract her from putting the finishing touches on her room.

“Will!” she laughs, throwing a book about constellations at him.

He dodges it, and his singing stops, though he looks quite offended. “You could have _killed_ me!” he yelps exaggeratedly.

“It was _paperback_!”

* * *

Will sits at the dining table, his sketchbook open in front of him, but he’s not drawing. Instead, he’s looking at El, who in turn is sitting by the window looking glumly out at the pouring rain.

“Hey,” he calls softly, and she looks over her shoulder at him. “I know you wanted to go stargazing tonight, but. There’ll be another day.”

“Yeah,” she shrugs, before looking away again and propping her chin up on her hand, elbow on the windowsill.

Will sighs, shutting his sketchbook. He’s never gonna get any work done as long as he’s thinking about cheering her up. “Come on,” he says, bounding across the room and pulling her up.

She groans as he pulls her upstairs, but she lets him anyway. “Where are you taking me?” she demands dramatically, though Will can tell she isn’t actually asking.

He tugs her into his room, gesturing for her to sit on his bed while he rummages through his desk. “Aha!” he exclaims triumphantly after a moment, turning around to reveal a… handful of string.

“Yay,” El deadpans. “String.”

Will sticks his tongue out at her. “No! Well, yes.” He waves his hand to hush her as she snickers. “But I was hoping you could get those glow in the dark stars and the string lights from your room?”

El flops onto her back, sighing obnoxiously. “But that requires _moving_, and I am comfortable…”

“I’ll tickle you,” Will says, completely seriously, and El sits up instantly.

“You wouldn’t.”

He narrows his eyes at her challengingly. “I sure would.”

She glares back at him, getting to her feet. “I’m doing this because I want to, not because of the tickling.” She opens the hidden panel that’s tucked away behind Will’s bookcase, stooping slightly so that she can fit through the shortcut to her room. She returns a moment later, a box of lights and charms and glowing plastic stars in her arms. “What are we doing?”

“We are going to make a little hiding place,” Will declares. “Just for us.”

“Like… Castle Byers?” El asks haltingly. “Will, it’s _raining_.”

“Yeah,” Will agrees, “which is why we’re gonna build it in there!” He gestures with a flourish to the nook El had just gone through.

“We’re gonna hear it whenever someone puts something into the closet,” El points out, because the hall closet is between their rooms, right in front of the passageway.

“But we can play music over it,” Will counters.

“If we put stuff in there, there might not be enough space.”

Will snorts. “El, have you _seen_ us? We’ll fit.”

El finally cracks a grin, because she’s being difficult and she knows it. “Okay. Give me the string, I wanna help with Fort Byers.”

* * *

“I was jealous, you know,” Will tells her as they look at the stars.

“Hmm?”

“Of you,” Will elaborates. “With Mike.” She doesn’t dare look at him for fear it’ll break the honest streak they have going_. _“I was upset that he was spending all his time with you last summer.”

El finally sits up in her sleeping bag, tearing her eyes away from the star Sirius—the brightest star in the sky, she's learned. Dewey grass sits under her hand. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Will doesn’t move, doesn’t look at her. She watches the stars shimmer in his irises as his gaze moves across the sky. “It’s not your fault,” he says after a moment. “I was just… stupid.”

“No,” El says firmly, taking his hand, and he finally looks her in the face. “You’re not stupid. You had feelings. That’s okay.”

His eyes are a little watery, she notices, but there’s a faint smile on his face. “I… yeah. Thanks, El.”

She lays back down and clasps her hands together atop her stomach, now searching for Arcturus, and it’s another few minutes before Will speaks again.

“There was another reason,” Will says, hesitant, and El just hums. She won’t push him. She listens to him take a few long breaths.

_You’re okay,_ she thinks as she reaches out to take his hand, wishes that Will could hear her thoughts.

“I was jealous,” Will says for the second time that night, and she knows he’s still staring at her even if she’s not looking at him. “Because I… I wanted Mike to look at me the way he looked at you.”

There’s a note of shame in his voice that she doesn’t understand, and his fingers twitch as though he intends to pull away. She just grips his hand even tighter. “Will,” she says firmly. “Get this in your head: we are family. I love you.”

She turns her head to look at him, only to find him staring up at the sky again, fighting the smile on his face. “I love you, too.”

* * *

(There are birthdays and graduations, anniversaries and breakups, holidays that they spend together. Mike visits for Thanksgiving. Max calls once a week. Will radios Cerebro.

Every afternoon, they come home from school after another exhausting day of being the Byers Twins, and El helps Will with calculus while Will edits El’s essays. Jonathan cooks dinner. Their mother brings home little gifts from her new job. It’s like this for three years (at least until it all goes to hell once more, but that’s a whole other thing in and of itself).

And it’s a slow and painful process, but in those three years, with Will’s help, El finally learns to let go.

She misses her powers, yes. She misses her sister. Most importantly, she misses her dad.

But when she has a nightmare—a normal, blessedly human nightmare—Will is there to hold her hand in the dark, to talk her through the horror, and she finds comfort in knowing that she can do the same for him.

Because, after all, he is her brother.)

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are, as always, appreciated.  
find me on tumblr, my main is [@perseusjaxon](https://perseusjaxon.tumblr.com) and my writing blog is [@lowriting](https://lowriting.tumblr.com)!


End file.
